


All That Was Left

by MoonMoon2020



Category: The Protomen
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mentioned Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 12:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17447021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonMoon2020/pseuds/MoonMoon2020
Summary: With both of her brothers gone, she was the only one left who still believed.





	All That Was Left

**Author's Note:**

> So...
> 
> I loVE ROLL AND I LOVE THE PROTOMEN AND I LOVE ROLL AND THE PROTOMEN

Doctor Light had forbidden her to go to the fortress once she’d realized that her brother had gone, but as a young child naive to the true horrors of the world, young Roll could not keep herself away from the site of the massacre, regardless of the danger that could surely claim her. She’d spent the few years of her earthly existence knowing that the world was being slowly consumed by pain and despair, all because of one man who controlled them all. She’d known that no one would dare to stand and take him down. But her brother had. No, both of them had. And yet they failed the people they were meant to save, and they were therefore forsaken. Or had they always been forsaken?

The scene was even worse than she could have ever imagined. The sun was slowly beginning its descent behind her as she passed the menacing gates leading into Skull Fortress, the home of Doctor Albert Wily, their city’s ruler and its tyrant. Perhaps even its killer.

The sky was black with smoke and ash from the fires that had begun and were only now fading away. Before her was the scene of a massacre. Bodies upon bodies, corpses of women, children, men, and robots, all together forming a mass of the deceased as their blood and their oil flowed from their wounds and formed a massive puddle that told a story of horrendous death and destruction, the death of hope. Roll shuddered as she tried her best not to step on one of the bodies, human or otherwise, so as not to disturb their sleeping forms. Their pain was finally over, but they had died cruelly and in vain.

They had been so eager, she had heard. So eager to watch the fighting and the bloodshed. They had been innocents, and yet when her brother fought and waged war against the man who had oppressed them for so long they had done nothing to help him. All they had done was encourage bloodshed and they did nothing but watch as her brother died, and so the other left them to die.

She could still hear the voices. She’d heard them, as she’d watched smoke rise from the direction of the fortress. She’d watched with horror, from twenty stories high, and she’d watched her city burn. She could hear the horrified screams, and the faint echos refused to leave her now, when all she longed for was peace from everything that had happened to her. To them. To their family. She could hear the chorus, and even though her heart aches for the innocents who had all died here today, she also felt anger at their own unwillingness to believe and to hope.

_We are the dead._

She had been hearing such a phrase for her entire life, and for her entire life, she and her brother had both hated hearing it. But neither twin could voice their hatred, not even when they heard their creator murmur it to himself as he worked on his projects. Roll wondered what would become of those projects now.

A faint breeze, soft as the echo of a chorus of the doomed, blew across the courtyard, ruffling her crimson dress and making her blonde hair blow in the wind. Roll absentmindedly lifted a hand and tightened the bright green ribbon keeping her hair tied back from her face, keeping the blonde synthetic strands from getting into her sapphire blue eyes.

She wondered what had happened, what truly happened. The rumors were spreading already: ProtoMan’s brother had gone to the fortress to avenge his death. ProtoMan was a traitor, a pawn of Wily’s. The two had fought. ProtoMan died, killed by MegaMan’s unwilling hands. Doctor Wily ordered his army, or what remained of it, to take out the crowd who had come daring to voice their belief in the man who had come to save them all and avenge his lost brother. They had been slaughtered, and MegaMan disappeared, leaving them to die...

They had encouraged it. Roll hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen the horror and the massacre with her own eyes, but she knew, because she and her brother had spent years watching the behavior of the people, always wondering why they didn’t band together and fight back against their oppressors.

Was it fear that held them back? Roll always wondered. She’d known in her heart that her brothers had both been brave. ProtoMan went into battle knowing his destiny and ready to face it, and in the end, he died for it. MegaMan knew the risks after hearing the stories of his brother, and yet he’d gone anyway. But now...

Both of them had failed. ProtoMan was now dead and MegaMan was gone, and Roll didn’t know if she’d ever see him again. The people had failed them. He’d thought that they would try to fight back.

She couldn’t believe that their hopes had been so horrendously dashed, shattered like glass. She could see the shards left behind, and she could see the pain and destruction in the bodies before her. She wondered how long it would take to clean it all up, how long it would take to repair the damage. How long it would take for Wily to rebuild his army and find a new commander to replace the one he’d lost today. How long it would take for him to reclaim control.

Suddenly, she’d felt the utter weight of grief. She’d cried when she’d received the news and saw the smoke rising from the fortress; she’d been crying when she’d raced out of her father’s apartment and raced twenty floors down and ran, uncaring of the people who called to her, telling her to stay away. She’d needed to see. Although the tears had halted when she’d came close and saw the smoke and carnage, now she could feel them building up behind her eyes again.

_We are the dead..._

“We are the dead,” she murmured, spitting out the words, choking on them and their horrible, bitter taste. She hated them. She hated Doctor Wily for what he had done to the city, and she hated the humans for letting him. She hated Doctor Light for refusing to believe, and she hated ProtoMan for giving up, and she even hated MegaMan for losing hope and leaving innocent people, worthless as they had been, to die.

But she would never make any progress on hatred, no matter how bitter she became or how much pain she would have to go through. She felt that she had suffered enough. Her brothers were gone and her father was too far into his own grief to remember her. The people around her refused to listen to her calls to action, and everyone had just... given up. Everyone except for her.

In that moment, she felt completely and utterly alone. MegaMan had given up his hope like all the rest. The city’s heroes were gone. There was no one left, and it hurt because she knew it was the truth. There were no heroes left in man.

Roll choked again, this time on her tears and her emotions. Everything hurt. She didn’t know what she could do anymore. She felt helpless. She could feel a few stray tears escape her eyes, and after a few moments of holding them back she let them flow, tired of having to hide how she felt from the world. Let it see her pain, her anger, her fear, her hope, her despair. Let them all see. They deserved to know that she hated this life, and she hated how she was helpless to stop it all. She didn’t understand how anyone could let go of hope when it was the only thing that kept this city alive.

Her heroes were gone. She was alone, helpless, reeling, and asking questions that she knew no one could answer. Perhaps she’d have to find out why. But if she did, would she too give up on hope, on saving humanity? Could it be that they were already doomed? What could she do now? What can she do? What can any of them do?

“Why, Rock...?” Roll murmured, looking out over the aftermath of the horrible massacre. “Why did you...?”

She swallowed. She reached up and wiped at her tears, although more came. She was shaking. She’d been calm when she’d arrived, collected despite the destruction around her, but she couldn’t hold back her horror and her despair anymore. She swallowed, and she could have sworn she felt a lump in her throat even though it was impossible for a robot like her. But there were lots of things that were supposed to be impossible for her, and Roll had proved them wrong; she and Rock had _both_ proven them wrong.

She could cry and she could feel, and now her emotions were a firestorm from within her, threatening to overflow. No, they already were. Roll buried her face in her hands, trying to stop the tears, but they just kept coming. She didn’t understand why. She was angry and devastated and she didn’t understand why MegaMan had failed. Why the people had failed him. Why ProtoMan chose his fate.

She could never understand.

“I don’t understand, Rock...! I don’t know what to do! Please, tell me to what to do!” Roll cried out, although no one could hear her. No one ever listened. No one could hear the silent screams of the city, because no one bothered to. Only she could hear, only she was left to listen to the pain. Everyone else refused to listen. Refused to bring about a change. They would always fail their heroes, because they could not be heroes themselves.

Heroes could not save them now. Roll knew that in her heart. There was no way they’d ever come together, not when this massacre had scarred their hearts with a horrible fear.

She looked down at her feet. She didn’t know what to do. She was scared, and yet she wanted to do something-she *needed* to do something. But she didn’t know how. Would they even accept her if she appeared, a hero promising freedom? Or would her promises break without her wishing them to; would she fall alone without anyone to save her, like her brothers had? Was she doomed to fall? She wanted to save them, but how could she? She was powerless like the rest of them. She was helpless. Her brothers had tried, and they had failed.

But she hadn’t just lost a hero. God, she’d lost a _brother_.

“Come back, Rock...” she whimpered, although she knew he wouldn’t just magically appear, somewhat damaged but still her Rock, still her brother. Nothing could bring him back, just like nothing could restore ProtoMan’s life. She was alone now.

Her foot brushed something, and when she looked down her eyes widened as she saw, through vision blurred by tears, a blue helmet, scratched and damaged in some places, but still in an alright condition. She knelt down, and she picked it up gently, as if it were an infant. She held it up to her face and could see her reflection in the cracked and dirtied visor. She swallowed, cracking a small smile when she saw how ridiculous she looked: her hair was disheveled from her run, her face was streaked with tears, and her eyes were red and slick from her tears. She looked pretty messed up, and she knew that it wasn’t nearly as bad as the corpses surrounding her. They had suffered a far worse fate, and she hoped that they would be properly buried, that their families would be able to have something to bury. She hoped that their names would not be forgotten, even if they had made their mistakes, even if they had forsaken their heroes and abandoned them, even if they had given up hope and sought only martyrs so they could feed their delusions of belief and hope when they truly didn’t wish to change it.

Roll would be naive if she believed that they still believed in heroes now, when one was dead and the other forsaken, both abandoned. She sighed, and she hugged her brother’s helmet close, even though the hard plastic felt uncomfortable.

“We were never meant to fight, Rock...” she mumbled weakly, holding it close. She was crying again. The thought of her brother, running into battle, only to be forced to watch his brother die, and the people do nothing but watch... she couldn’t imagine how awful it must have been. The pain she was feeling now was horrible; God knows what pain Rock must have been forced to endure. She shuddered with another sob.

“I’m sorry, Rock... I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”

He’d told her to stay, too. She’d been upset, but she’d agreed. They both knew she didn’t have any weapons to defend herself. Rock had his buster, but what could she do? Use her broom? Those robots were made of some of the world’s best steel; she wouldn’t have been able to make much beyond a dent. She knew that. She hated feeling like she was useless, but she knew that her efforts to stop the carnage would have been fruitless as well. Nothing she could have done would have changed anything.

A flash of yellow crossed her vision. She looked over, and she gasped, clutching the helmet tight to her chest as she raced over, careful not to trip on a corpse or a robotic limb. She halted, reached down, and grabbed at the tattered yellow fabric. She didn’t know why she felt so inclined to grab it, but she suddenly felt like she needed it.

She carefully pulled it from the metal carcass it had been caught in, and she found herself holding a long yellow scarf, the color slightly dulled, and edges tattered. It was still in good condition, however, and Roll carefully bundled it up and held it, along with her brother’s helmet.

_This is ProtoMan’s_ , she thought to herself. She didn’t know how she knew. She’d never seen ProtoMan in person, and she never would, now that he was gone. But this was his scarf just as the helmet belonged to Rock, and she knew that she would keep them both close to her heart for the rest of her days. They were her brothers’ talismans and now they would be hers.

This was all that was left of the city’s heroes. She would now hold them close and remember them, much like how she knew her father kept an old green helmet nearby even though he always said he despised the Sniper Joes Doctor Wily had developed by the hundreds. She didn’t know what she would do now that they were gone. But suddenly she felt that she needed to keep holding on. She needed to survive for the people who couldn’t.

“We can hold out... we can hold out Rock,” Roll murmured. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to save the city... or even if it can.

“But... I know we can hold out. We can hold out against this endless dark.”

She needed to go. Doctor Wily May have noticed her presence already. She was in the belly of the beast, and she knew it. But she wasn’t scared. She couldn’t be scared. Too many people had suffered because of cowardice, and she would not let herself suffer the same fate.

She was alone. She was all she had, and she knew that too. Doctor Light had told her so, right before she left to see the site of her brothers’ fall.

_“You’re on your own. You’re all you’ve got now.”_

She took the scarf, and she tied it around her neck, leaving most of it to flow in the breeze. She clutched the helmet tight to her head, knowing that it would be too dangerous to wear it now. It would be like wearing propaganda, the propaganda of Wily’s enemy, and he could have her killed. She’d fight back, but she was still in danger.

So she clutched it to her heart, as she left the fortress, trying her best to dry her tears. The scarf around her neck flowed about, and she didn’t try to take it off. It was hers now. Her burden to carry.

She prayed that she would be able to do what her brothers could not, someday, in the future. She believed that there was still a chance, and she wanted to take it. She needed to take it, before it was too late.

“All a fire needs is a single spark, right?” Roll mumbled, turning back one more time. “I promise Rock. I promise I won’t fail you. I won’t fail you either, ProtoMan. You’re my brothers, and I your sister. I will carry your burden, and your legacy.”

She turned, and she left. She needed to return, needed to disappear into the crowd before Wily thought to have her executed for being there, in the aftermath.

She needed to return home. She needed to find a way to fight back.

She needed to be the hero her brothers couldn’t be.

_There must be an end to the darkness._


End file.
